, 1887-09-11

his hair wuz white as snow n he wuz the
most broke up lookin' man | ever sot eyes
on. One O the boys said as how some
big sorrer d struck him. We went
lookin about the place-'twuh a Jail and
fort together-when we come along to a
padded cell wher' there wuz a woman
moanin' and bangin' herself by turns. 1t
just made my flesh creep to see her git
around n perform. l wuz goin' long
when she sorter slid up to the gratin',
clinched my hand and says: 'Ye won't
let EN- hurt me, will ye, George2 Oh,
but it's a long, long weary ways, George
Gentlemen, if I'd been struck by the
blizzardest kind of chain lightnln'
it wouldn't a hurt me more. Their
wuz the very gal that the DANCED
muskeeters eat up at Bufaler creek
Her husband was the young governor of
the fort. She'd got crazy comm to him.
He never knowed her troubles until he
met her at the boat, in the terrible shape
she wuz at Winnipeg. 1t turned the
poor cuss's hair white with grief like.
eyes on one another. for the gal died di-
rectly n dang my skin, fl ever see an
out a out Minnesoty muskeeter, sech as
they used to was, 'thout seem that Can
muck gals big, scary eyes, and the white
head and sort of bent, stoopin' broke up
look of the young jailer of Lower Fort
Carey"
Then, as patbos seemed to rule the
hour, a wheezy, solemn loiterer who had
been a great man in the early days, and
who also expressed scorn at anything
akin to prevarication, merely limited he
thought he could go his distinguished pre-
decessor one better in the heartwringin g
line, and began
The Stage Drivers Story.
Long during the early days of the
war, before the bloody railroads burst our
business to p eces, | drove on the river
line which connected the lower river towns
with st. Paul. At this time, Hastings
was the finest town below St. Paul. It's
a rich, slow town now, a kind of one boss
place full of rich nobodies, church socie-
ties, Junk heads and scandal. We1k there
was a family lived there, a sort of high
fyin' family named Rallison, who'd got
bust up in Washington, and moved out
there-some money, lots of style, never
did nuthin' like nobody else, and while
they had their own sweet way, which was
a Jolly, easy way, kinder got themselves
dlsllked by the busybodies. They had
several daughters, and one named Ger
tie Everybody called her Cert for shsrt,)
that was a real stopper, got herself up
like a four time winner. OF course, the
more she got herself up the Hastings
folks got down. Sue was Just for the
world like my off mare outen the barn,
spunky. Draw it easy and mild like, and
there amt a better mare Twin. Yell
and yank a little. and she's dodrotted sin
full eternally. Well, Cert Rallison growed
up in that naggin' crowd down there, and
KICKED THE TRACES.
Everybody whispered and nudged and
winked, aud protested and tried to make
her out bad, whether she was or not.
she despised all that and did act, mebby,
a teehe off sometimes, but she had a heart
bigger'n John Kray's belly, and got
around the mourners, dom more genuine
good than all the psalm singin' sisters in
they did give Cert a pretty bad racket
right along, till one day a quiet, sober
thinkin' kind of a fellow, a civil engineer,
or somethin' come along and married her.
Everything went elegant for a while, but
the bloody old gossips couldn't stand it to
see the girl happy, pisined her husband
about her, and in a jealous fit he listed in
the old Minnesota First, went to the war
without sayin' goodbye, never writ a
word to her, and the girl, all broken
hearted like, jist had no comfort tryin' to
be decent among them bloody gossips,
and did really 90 to the bad. What
settled it with everybody, a little kid was
born. and the old women showed hat it
couldn't, oh, no, never, be by her righttul
husband. So Cert Rallison was sort OF
half tolerated, half on the town, and the
mlserablest woman that ever lived. What
made it all Grazing to her was little
Willie, as everybody called the kid, was,
80 they said, a perfect picter. and they'll
talk about the
BEAUTY Of THAT BOY
to this day down at Hastings. Ye see
everybody'd gather their skirts when Cert
came along the street, but all the old
women'd steal Willie off and hold prayer
meetin's over him, and give the kid all
sorts of rackets, such as, Poor boy, and
such a motherl' Poor boy; poor Willie,
ye havn't got any father, have YEP
'Alack, alack, poor Willie; such a mother;
no father Well, do you know that little
fellow grew up the pet of the whole place,
and got in the habit of prattling, When
| dts big III fin my papa Everybody
thought that smart, of course, and en-
couraged the little cuss in the idea, until
he scarcely thought of anything else, while
1t nearly drove Cert wild, and seemed to
send her to the bad faster than ever. l
learned all this afterwards. In the fall OF
'65, jest as winter was threatenin', | was
on the run from Redwing up to Hastings.
There wasn't any snow yet, but it had
turned bitter cold. A regular blizzard
had come down the night before. Down
at RedwinE, at the hotel, l had met a
military lookin' sort of chap, a splendid
gentleman, but nervous as thunder. He
edged up to me pretty easy, set EN- up
lively, and kept asking about Hastings
folks, but | didn't know many, and he
left on a St. Paul ticket a stage ahead.
well, | was drivin' along at a pretty
fair jog considerin' the road was almighty
ugly, whistlin' and sometimes runnin'
aside the horses to keep warm, when l
saw something kinder futtering in the
rail fence. | stopped the horses and
poked in among the leaves and sand drift
and what do you suppose | found2 l
found a little kid, a boy about four years
old, with curls all over his face and
shoulders. a smilin', if you ever saw a